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Nitrogen is a gas that is available in abundance in Air. It has numerous applications like Food processing, heat treatment, metal cutting, glassmaking, Chemical Industry, and many other processes rely on nitrogen in some form or capacity.

Nitrogen, as an inert gas, offers an extensive variety of capabilities to the oil, gas and petrochemical enterprises. Used principally during plant maintenance, start-up and shutdown preparations, nitrogen purging and subsequent nitrogen spill testing form a critical path to the favorable outcome of any project. Therefore, nitrogen has become extremely important for onshore and offshore applications.

Nitrogen holds the topmost priority when we talk about safety in the Oil and gas industry. This gas ensures safety when they are being cleaned and in other situations where there is a need of inert atmosphere. With the origin of low-cost and reliable nitrogen production, numerous oil and gas industries have opted for nitrogen generators. It has several other applications too, read below the other applications of nitrogen in the oil and gas industry.

Nitrogen Blanketing

Nitrogen blanketing, also known as tank blanketing and tank padding, is a process that involves the application of nitrogen to a storage container consisting of chemicals and hydrocarbons that are volatile and reactive with oxygen. When a tank is purged with nitrogen, the material (that is usually a liquid) inside the tank does not come in contact with the oxygen. Blanketing lets the prolonged life of the product and the potential explosive hazard are diminished.

Purging of Nitrogen

To replace any undesirable or a hazardous atmosphere with an inert dry atmosphere, Nitrogen purging is used i.e. to limit the oxygen content so it does not react with other explosive mixtures and hydrocarbons. Displacement and dilution are the two most common methods of purging. Which method is to be used for which system depends on its geometry. Displacement is more effective for simple systems and dilution is used for complex systems.

To cool down the catalyst in a refinery

At the point when a refinery is to be shut down, it is preferable to minimize the temperature of the catalyst associated with the procedure at the earliest. For this reason, nitrogen, in huge volumes can be driven into the catalyst utilizing a pumping equipment to cool down the catalyst quickly and save shutdown time.